Google Cloud Next—Google Cloud and NVIDIA today announced new AI infrastructure and software for customers to build and deploy massive models for generative AI and speed data science workloads.

In a fireside chat at Google Cloud Next, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian and NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang discussed how the partnership is bringing end-to-end machine learning services to some of the largest AI customers in the world—including by making it easy to run AI supercomputers with Google Cloud offerings built on NVIDIA technologies. The new hardware and software integrations utilize the same NVIDIA technologies employed over the past two years by Google DeepMind and Google research teams.

At Gamescom 2023 in Cologne we had a booth for fans to play Path of Exile 2 and try out the new Druid class - a spellcaster who channels the fury of nature on the battlefield to become a walking natural disaster. Check out our Gamescom Druid gameplay walkthrough below! Thanks to everyone who has come to play Path of Exile 2 at Gamescom so far! It was great meeting you in person, and the fan meetup beforehand was fantastic. We'll be at PAX West next week. See you there! For more information about Path of Exile 2 and to see the other trailers, visit pathofexile2.com.

Path of Exile 2 is a next generation Action RPG created by Grinding Gear Games. Set years after the original Path of Exile, you will return to the dark world of Wraeclast and seek to end the corruption that is spreading. Path of Exile 2 is a free-to-play online multiplayer game with co-op for up to six players.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. announced the all-new Snapdragon G Series handheld gaming portfolio, built to meet the unique performance and feature demands of dedicated gaming devices. The new Snapdragon G Series unlocks a range of options for playing the most sought-after games, offering boundless ways to play virtually any game, anywhere.

"Dedicated handheld gaming devices are the best way to experience mobile games. But gamers want to be able to play all their favorite games across devices and ecosystems, be it their console, PC, or on a cloud service" said Mithun Chandrasekhar, senior director of product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "The new generation of Snapdragon G Series powered devices will be the best place for gamers to play their favorite titles, offering them the ability to choose from the cloud, console, Android, or PC while on-the-go."

Today, AMD released the findings from a new survey of global IT leaders which found that 3 in 4 IT leaders are optimistic about the potential benefits of AI—from increased employee efficiency to automated cybersecurity solutions—and more than 2 in 3 are increasing investments in AI technologies. However, while AI presents clear opportunities for organizations to become more productive, efficient, and secure, IT leaders expressed uncertainty on their AI adoption timeliness due to their lack of implementation roadmaps and the overall readiness of their existing hardware and technology stack.

AMD commissioned the survey of 2,500 IT leaders across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Japan to understand how AI technologies are re-shaping the workplace, how IT leaders are planning their AI technology and related Client hardware roadmaps, and what their biggest challenges are for adoption. Despite some hesitations around security and a perception that training the workforce would be burdensome, it became clear that organizations that have already implemented AI solutions are seeing a positive impact and organizations that delay risk being left behind. Of the organizations prioritizing AI deployments, 90% report already seeing increased workplace efficiency.

Courtesy of an SK Hynix keynote speech at the Flash Memory Summit, we now have a few more details about its upcoming 321-layer NAND Flash. PC Watch Japan who attended the industry event shared some pictures from the keynote which adds some crucial details that were missing from last week's press release. SK Hynix's officially shared performance figures tell us that we should expect up to 12 percent faster program performance, which should be the write performance and up to 13 percent improved read latency. Both of these performance metrics will obviously depend on the SSD controller the NAND is paired with, the related firmware on said controller and so forth.

PC Watch Japan also quotes a program throughput of 194 MB/s, which is 26 MB/s improvement over SK Hynix 176-layer NAND and currently the highest known program throughput of any announced NAND Flash. That said, Kioxia is expecting to hit 205 MB/s with its next generation of 300 layer NAND. SK Hynix also claims 10 percent better read power efficiency, which is really neither here nor there when it comes to modern SSDs, unless we're talking server level SSDs with a dozen of these NAND chips or more. Rather than going with two stacks of 150 plus layers each, SK Hynix went with three times 107 layer stacks, which should be compared to their current 238 layer product which has two stacks of 119 layers. This made the new NAND package easier to produce and should in the long term result in higher yields. Each NAND package is expected to deliver a memory density of 20 Gbit per square millimetre or more, which is almost twice that of its 176-layer NAND.

According to a short article released by ITHome, Machenike, a popular Chinese PC hardware company displayed several interesting Intel CPU-based systems at the Bilibili World exhibition (in Shanghai). The manufacturer confirmed (to the reporter) that their next generation hardware will be hitting the market within the next three months, which coincides with the rumored launch of Intel 14th Gen Core Raptor Lake-Refresh desktop K-series SKUs.

Exhibited material implied that Machenike's upcoming PCs—arriving in the form of a "LIGHT-05" desktop tower, mini models and laptops—could be among the first batch of systems to support PCIe Gen 5 storage (as standard). Potential buyers could be attracted to next-gen machines offering access to faster NVMe SSD, on top of rumored higher core counts provided by the Raptor Lake Refresh. ITHome believes that a number of the mini-PCs at Machenike's booth were already running on Raptor Lake Refresh or (Core rebrand) Meteor Lake processors.

Teledyne LeCroy, the worldwide leader in protocol test solutions, announced that it has received Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) approval for testing DisplayPort 2.1 Link Training Tunable PHY Repeater (LTTPR) and Display Stream Compression (DSC) compliance with the quantumdata M42de Video Analyzer and Generator. These tests underwent extensive testing during industry workshops to ensure their accuracy and reliability and are now considered mandatory for compliance certification of DisplayPort 2.1 Ultra High Bit Rate (UHBR) capable devices.

The DisplayPort specification was updated to version 2.1 in October of 2022 and brought significant changes to link training and LTTPR operation. Design and test engineers are faced with incrementally more testing as DisplayPort chipsets add support for the new link training and other advanced features. "The need to drive higher video resolutions and frame rates raises the bar for vendors seeking VESA logo approval. Compliance testing is a key factor in delivering a robust DisplayPort technology ecosystem and outstanding customer experiences," said Bill Lempesis, executive director of VESA, which develops and administers the DisplayPort standard and compliance logo program. "Reaching this level of comprehensive test coverage so quickly after the DisplayPort 2.1 specification was released is only possible due to the close collaboration between test vendors like Teledyne LeCroy and our VESA member companies."

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Meta are working to optimize the execution of Meta's Llama 2 large language models directly on-device - without relying on the sole use of cloud services. The ability to run generative AI models like Llama 2 on devices such as smartphones, PCs, VR/AR headsets, and vehicles allows developers to save on cloud costs, and to provide users with private, more reliable, and personalized experiences.

As a result, Qualcomm Technologies plans to make available on-device Llama 2-based AI implementations to enable the creation of new and exciting AI applications. This will allow customers, partners, and developers to build use cases, such as intelligent virtual assistants, productivity applications, content creation tools, entertainment, and more. These new on-device AI experiences, powered by Snapdragon, can work in areas with no connectivity or even in airplane mode.

Global LiFi technology firms pureLiFi and Fraunhofer HHI welcome the release of IEEE 802.11bb as the latest global light communications standard alongside IEEE 802.11 WiFi standards. The bb standard marks a significant milestone for the LiFi market, as it provides a globally recognised framework for deployment of LiFi technology.

LiFi is a wireless technology that uses light rather than radio frequencies to transmit data. By harnessing the light spectrum, LiFi can unleash faster, more reliable wireless communications with unparalleled security compared to conventional technologies such as WiFi and 5G. The Light Communications 802.11bb Task Group was formed in 2018 chaired by pureLiFi and supported by Fraunhofer HHI, two firms which have been at the forefront of LiFi development efforts. Both organisations aim to see accelerated adoption and interoperability not only between LiFi vendors but also with WiFi technologies as a result of these standardisation efforts.

Chinese tech tipster Enthusiast Citizen (ECSM) has once again posted about upcoming Intel CPU product launches—according to an inside info post (published via Bilibili), Team Blue has possibly scheduled their Raptor Lake Refresh/14th Gen Core K-series for a release window around the 42nd week of 2023 (October 17 - 23). ECSM posits that non-K models will arrive during the first week of 2024, coinciding with January's CES trade event. The Core i7-14700K model is said to feature a new configuration of 8 Performance and 12 Efficiency cores, and current LGA1700 motherboards will most likely require a firmware upgrade to run this specific SKU.

ECSM also seems to have insider information regarding motherboard chipsets for desktop Arrow Lake/15th Gen Core, although they cannot determine an accurate time frame for the (fully new) product launch. Intel Z890, B860 and H810 chipsets are named as possible upcoming candidates for proper next generation CPUs, with H870 allegedly dropped from development. ECSM claims that a competing AMD Zen 5 lineup is not arriving this year—prior insider information was perhaps fabricated. They believe that Storm Peak (Zen 4 Threadripper) is scheduled for Q4 2023, with two unnamed chipsets lined up to accompany this next-gen HEDT platform.

Last week Micron Technology CEO, Sanjay Mehrotra, announced during an investors meeting that the company's next generation GPU memory—GDDR7—will be arriving next year: "In graphics, industry analysts continue to expect graphics' TAM compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to outpace the broader market, supported by applications across client and data center. We expect customer inventories to normalize in calendar Q3. We plan to introduce our next-generation G7 product on our industry-leading 1ß node in the first half of calendar year 2024." His proposed launch window seems to align with information gleaned from previous reports—with NVIDIA and AMD lined up to fit GDDR7 SGRAM onto their next-gen mainstream GPUs, although Team Green could be delaying their Ada Lovelace successor into 2025.

Micron already counts these big players as key clients for its current GDDR6 and GDDR6X video memory offerings, but Samsung could be vying for some of that action with its own GDDR7 technology (as announced late last year). Presentation material indicated that Samsung is anticipating data transfer rates in the range of 36 Gbps, with usage of PAM3 signalling. Cadence has also confirmed similar numbers for its (industry first) GDDR7 verification solution, but the different encoding standard will require revising of memory controllers and physical interfaces.

Samsung Electronics, a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced its latest foundry technology innovations and business strategy at the 7th annual Samsung Foundry Forum (SFF) 2023. Under the theme "Innovation Beyond Boundaries," this year's forum delved into Samsung Foundry's mission to address customer needs in the artificial intelligence (AI) era through advanced semiconductor technology.

Over 700 guests, from customers and partners of Samsung Foundry, attended this year's event, of which 38 companies hosted their own booths to share the latest technology trends in the foundry industry.

AMD today announced the AMD Versal Premium VP1902 adaptive system-on-chip (SoC), the world's largest adaptive SoC. The VP1902 adaptive SoC is an emulation-class, chiplet-based device designed to streamline the verification of increasingly complex semiconductor designs. Offering 2X the capacity over the prior generation, designers can confidently innovate and validate application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and SoC designs to help bring next generation technologies to market faster.

AI workloads are driving increased complexity in chipmaking, requiring next-generation solutions to develop the chips of tomorrow. FPGA-based emulation and prototyping provides the highest level of performance, allowing faster silicon verification and enabling developers to shift left in the design cycle and begin software development well before silicon tape-out. AMD, through Xilinx, brings over 17 years of leadership and six generations of the industry's highest capacity emulation devices, which have nearly doubled in capacity each generation.

Pursue your dream of an aviation career with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. This brand-new simulator is designed to take advantage of the latest technologies in simulation, cloud, machine learning, graphics and gaming to create the most sophisticated, immersive and awe-inspiring flight simulator of all time. To achieve this unprecedented level of accuracy, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is powered by the significantly evolved Asobo Studio engine.

Available day one on Xbox Game Pass, PC Game Pass, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Windows 10/11, and Steam. Coming 2024. We look forward to sharing more information about Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 in the future.

The Korea Intellectual Property Rights Information Service (KIPRIS) has been processing a bunch of trademark applications in recent weeks, submitted by Samsung Electronics Corporation. News outlets pointed out, earlier on this month, that the South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate was attempting to secure the term "Snowbolt" as a moniker for an unreleased HBM3P DRAM-based product. Industry insiders and Samsung representatives have indicated that high bandwidth memory (5 TB/s bandwidth speeds per stack) will be featured in upcoming cloud servers, high-performance and AI computing - slated for release later on in 2023.

A Samsung-focused news outlet, SamMobile, has reported (on May 15) of further trademark applications for next generation DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) products. Samsung has filed for two additional monikers - "Shinebolt" and "Flamebolt" - details published online show that these products share the same "designated goods" descriptors with the preceding "Snowbolt" registration: "DRAM modules with high bandwidth for use in high-performance computing equipment, artificial intelligence, and supercomputing equipment" and "DRAM with high bandwidth for use in graphic cards." Kye Hyun Kyung, CEO of Samsung Semiconductor, has been talking up his company's ambitions of competing with rival TSMC in providing cutting edge component technology, especially in the field of AI computing. It is too early to determine whether these "-bolt" DRAM products will be part of that competitive move, but it is good to know that speedier memory is on the way - future generation GPUs are set to benefit.

Today, after nearly three years of development, Sightful unveiled Spacetop : the World's First Augmented Reality (AR) Laptop. Created by a team of more than 60 spatial computing experts, including veterans from Apple, Microsoft, and Magic Leap, Spacetop represents the next generation in personal computing and the first application of Augmented Reality that seamlessly fits into users' daily lives. With customized hardware and a proprietary spatial environment, Spacetop leverages AR to remove the physical constraints of standard laptops. The result is a first-of-its-kind product that allows users to carry with them a massive, private, virtual workspace designed and customized by the user to be their most creative self, no matter where they are—all in a familiar laptop form factor.

"Two worlds sit at a crossroads: Laptops are the centerpiece of our daily working lives, but the technology has not evolved with the modern, work from anywhere, privacy matters, 'road warrior' mentality. Meanwhile, Augmented Reality is full of potential and promise, but is yet to find its daily use case," said Tamir Berliner, CEO and co-founder of Sightful. "We are at the perfect moment for a significant paradigm shift in a device we all know and love, and Spacetop Early Access is the first step in that journey."

We're excited to announce that Unreal Engine 5.2 is now available. With this release, we've further expanded UE5's groundbreaking toolset as it continues to deliver on the promise of making Unreal Engine the most open and advanced real-time 3D creation tool in the world. Alongside feature refinements and stability improvements, Unreal Engine 5.2 pushes the boundaries of what creators can expect out of the box, delivering innovative new functionality.

Procedural Content Generation framework
Unreal Engine 5.2 offers an early look at a Procedural Content Generation framework (PCG) that can be used directly inside Unreal Engine without relying on external packages. The framework includes both in-editor tools and a runtime component. The PCG tools enable you to define rules and parameters to populate large scenes with Unreal Engine assets of your choice, making the process of creating large worlds fast and efficient.

Noctua has, as of this month, refreshed its product roadmap for the rest of 2023, and even provides a couple of scant details about far-off hardware scheduled for launch in early 2024 and beyond. The Austrian computer cooling hardware specialist is probably updating their release forecast in preparation for Computex 2023 - set to start at the end of the month - where brand new goodies could be debuted to industry-types and public attendees.

Noctua's 8-way fan hub seems to be delayed - the previous version of the roadmap had it down for a Q1 2023 launch, but the update now indicates a second quarter window. A bunch of next-gen AMD Threadripper coolers are marked down for an estimated third-quarter release, and Noctua has a slim 60 mm fan
as well as a 24 V 40 mm fan lined up for the final quarter. All-black versions of existing NH-D12L, NH-D9L and NH-L9x65 CPU coolers are due by the end of this year - a number of coolers are already available in the company's "chromax.black" finish - for those who do not enjoy the signature beige and brown aesthetic. A single next-generation 140 mm fan is teased for a Q1 2024 launch, with a chromax.black version coming later in the year. Finally, a re-designed NH-D15 CPU cooler gets a loose 2024 window.

Intel has appointed Deepak Patil as the new corporate vice president and general manager of its Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) group. Patil is set to succeed Raja Koduri in this leadership role - company CEO Pat Gelsinger was the first person to announce news (last month) of Koduri's departure from Intel. At the time of his leaving Team Blue, Koduri's official job title was "Executive Vice President and Chief Architect" so the wording of his successor's executive ranking is slightly different. Patil is the current chief technology and strategy officer at the Intel Data Center and AI Group, and was previously senior vice president at Dell APEX USA. He will be taking over directly from interim AXG division leader Jeff McVeigh.

The official Intel statement regarding its new leadership appointment states: "Intel will deliver competitive accelerated computing products and build scalable systems with easy-to-program software on a predictable cadence. Deepak Patil will serve as the CVP and General Manager of the Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) group. Deepak recently held the position of DCAI Chief Technology and Strategy Officer. Having held senior engineering leadership positions across the high-tech industry, including being a founding member of Microsoft Azure and leading Dell's APEX as-a-service business, he understands the important role that software and open ecosystems play in enabling application developers and service providers to bring innovative solutions to market, at scale."

Early details of MediaTek's next generation mobile chipset have emerged this week, courtesy of renowned leaker Digital Chat Station via their blog on Weibo. The successor to MediaTek's current flagship Dimensity 9200 mobile chipset will likely be called "Dimensity 9300" - a very imaginative bump up in numbering - with smartphone brand Vivo involved as a collaborator. The tipster thinks that the fabless semiconductor company has contracted with TSMC for fabrication of the Dimensity 9300 chipset - and the foundry's N4P process has been selected by MediaTek, which could provide a bump in generational performance when compared to the older 4 nm and 5 nm standards used for past Dimensity SoC ranges. It should be noted that the current generation Dimensity 9200 chipset is presently manufactured via TSMC's N4P process.

MediaTek is seeking to turnaround its fortunes in the area of flagship mobile chipsets - industry watchdogs have cited a limited uptake of the Taiwanese company's Dimensity 9200 SoC as a motivating factor in the creation of a very powerful successor. Digital Chat Station suggests that the upcoming 9300 model will pack enough of a hardware punch to rival Qualcomm's forthcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC - both chipsets are touted to release within the same time period of late 2023. According to previous speculation, Qualcomm has also contracted with TSMC's factory to pump out the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 via the N4P (4 nm) process.

Samsung and LG are among an number of tech companies reportedly pushing for radical changes in the cinema viewing experience. In a piece published by the Hollywood Reporter last week, new behind-the-scenes information has come to light about an effort to replace the (some will say tried and true) traditional cinema theater projection system with LED walls. The vast majority of international theater chains rely on a front projection method (via a back of the booth), and very few locations have a more state-of-the-art LED display-based system in place. The Culver Theater (naturally located in Culver City, CA) is one of a hundred cinemas worldwide to possess a Samsung Onyx LED display - although the tech on show is said to be of an older standard. Industry insiders have been invited to attend demonstrations of a newer generation LED wall technology destined for cinemas in the future, and early impressions are purported to be mixed.

A cinema-based LED wall display functions in a similar way to how a modern LED-based flat screen TV works - although on a much greater massive scale - with particular benefits of the technology resulting in fantastic performance in terms of high dynamic range and peak brightness. The main downside of having a tightly packed array of large LED panels is the resultant heat output - critics of the technology state that it will be difficult to implement an adequate cooling system (through air conditioning) to tame the wall's temperature increasing properties. The power required to operate the LED panel array (plus required cooling solution) is said to be much higher than that of an old-fashioned projector's relatively modest draw from the electricity supply. An LED wall will also completely negate the traditional placement of loudspeakers behind a cinema's front-placed screen - and sound engineers will need to explore a different method of front audio channel output within the context of a next generation LED theater room.

Intel Foundry Services (IFS) and Arm today announced a multigeneration agreement to enable chip designers to build low-power compute system-on-chips (SoCs) on the Intel 18A process. The collaboration will focus on mobile SoC designs first, but allow for potential design expansion into automotive, Internet of Things (IoT), data center, aerospace and government applications. Arm customers designing their next-generation mobile SoCs will benefit from leading-edge Intel 18A process technology, which delivers new breakthrough transistor technologies for improved power and performance, and from IFS's robust manufacturing footprint that includes U.S.- and EU-based capacity.

"There is growing demand for computing power driven by the digitization of everything, but until now fabless customers have had limited options for designing around the most advanced mobile technology," said Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel Corporation. "Intel's collaboration with Arm will expand the market opportunity for IFS and open up new options and approaches for any fabless company that wants to access best-in-class CPU IP and the power of an open system foundry with leading-edge process technology."

Insider sources at Microsoft have spoken of continued efforts to modernize the core of its operating system, with the work-in-progress Windows 12 cited as the ideal candidate for substantial updates. The engineering team is reported to be integrating a modular design, which will allow for a reduced operating system footprint - similar in principle to ChromeOS. According to a Windows Report article the operating system development team is hard at work on a spiritual successor to the abandoned Windows Core OS project. Their newest effort is reported to be called "Windows CorePC" and Microsoft is aiming to hit the same goals it set for its Windows 10X edition, which was cancelled in mid-2021, but they will also target native support for legacy applications on devices that require necessary access.

Windows Core OS was shutdown after years of development and internal testing - it was hoped that a modular Universal Windows Platform-first (UWP-F) operating system would be more lightweight and gain stronger security features, as well as greater access to regular updates. The inside sources stated that Windows Core OS will not be developed any further, at least not for desktop computer purposes. The Microsoft team is anticipating that its new CorePC project will lead onto new configurations of Windows that feature a capability of scaling up and down depending on hardware variations. Windows PCs and devices, in some user case scenarios, do not require full breadth of legacy Win32 application support. CorePC will enable different configurations of Windows to be installed on a custom basis.

Apple's engineering team is rumored to be adjusting performance targets set for its next generation mobile SoC - the A17 Bionic - due to issues at the TSMC foundry. The cutting edge 3 nm process is proving difficult to handle, according to industry tipsters on Twitter. The leaks point to the A17 Bionic's overall performance goals being lowered by 20%, mainly due to the TSMC N3B node not meeting production targets. The factory is apparently lowering its yield and execution targets due to ongoing problems with FinFET limitations.

The leakers have recently revealed more up-to-date A17 Bionic's Geekbench 6 scores, with single thread performance at 3019, and multi-thread at 7860. Various publications have been hyping the mobile SoC's single thread performance as matching that of desktop CPUs from Intel and AMD, more specifically 13th-gen Core i7 and 'high-end' Ryzen models. Naturally the A17 Bionic cannot compete with these CPUs in terms of multi-thread performance.

Ayar Labs, a leader in the use of silicon photonics for chip-to-chip optical connectivity, today announced public demonstration of the industry's first 4 terabit-per-second (Tbps) bidirectional Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) optical solution at the upcoming Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) in San Diego on March 5-9, 2023. The company achieves this latest milestone as it works with leading high-volume manufacturing and supply partners including GlobalFoundries, Lumentum, Macom, Sivers Photonics and others to deliver the optical interconnects needed for data-intensive applications. Separately, the company was featured in an announcement with partner Quantifi Photonics on a CW-WDM-compliant test platform for its SuperNova light source, also at OFC.

In-package optical I/O uniquely changes the power and performance trajectories of system design by enabling compute, memory and network silicon to communicate with a fraction of the power and dramatically improved performance, latency and reach versus existing electrical I/O solutions. Delivered in a compact, co-packaged CMOS chiplet, optical I/O becomes foundational to next-generation AI, disaggregated data centers, dense 6G telecommunications systems, phased array sensory systems and more.